Utah

We left the motel this morning at 8:30 -- a new record! Then we crossed into Nevada and Pacific Time, and it was 7:30! Then we quickly left Nevada and started losing time. We drove back towards Salt Lake along the Salt Flats on route 80 -- a straight, flat stretch through flat, white, almost featureless scenery; a very interesting drive (and the whole reason we'd diverted this far west for the night). We stopped at the rest stop right at the beginning (next exit 49 miles...) and even walked on a stretch of salt flat.

At 10:15 we stopped at Salt Air on the Great Salt Lake, the site of an old 19th century resort, but now sadly in a state of decline. And it doesn't help that the Salt Lake has receded so it's a five to ten minute hike to get to the water. We dipped our feet in but didn't feel like swimming -- the Salt Lake has always smelled kind of funky.

We stopped in downtown Salt Lake City to do the mandatory site-seeing of the Mormon temple, then drove around the university area. We were headed out of Salt Lake City to Park City, but I kept getting lost and missing exits. Finally on the way to Park City, I ended up on a mountain peak short-cut because I believed a sign, which in retrospect was merely marking an alternate route (though confusingly). A small winding road took us up to nearly 3000 meters, then turned to unpaved road for the way down. We had a brief picnic at the peak before continuing down the switch-back dirt road. It took us past a lot of construction sites, where they seem to be upgrading some ski areas, and building all kinds of fancy condos, before finally depositing us in Park City from the top, a way I'd never gotten there before.

While definitely over-growing with too much new development, Park City is still very cutesy, trendy, and interesting. For me we'd clearly underallotted the amount of time to spend there, since I was already thinking about the trip to Moab. But we walked down Main St., took the free trolley back up, checked out a few stores, and took pictures. It was around three when we left.

Driving through some very picturesque scenery and towns, we made our way to Provo to catch the interstate south. Then a straight shot down for nearly 90 miles before turning off, driving a smaller road to connect to another interstate. There was a classic driving-in-the-West moment here, since Salina is the last place to get gas for the next 110 miles -- and this is an Interstate!

The route kept getting more and more interesting scenery-wise, with more and more cliffs and buttes and other formations, and the colors turning more to red. We stopped at one fantastic scenic look-out -- it almost makes it redundant to go to the Parks down here, the fantastic scenery you see just getting here. At the rest-stop some itinerant Navajos were selling jewelry and stuff from their truck. We bought some hematite necklaces.

Then all the stops started to get pulled: there were rain clouds pouring rain you could see in the distance (and not so distance: we drove through some rain -- in the desert!), rainbows breaking out, dramatic cloud formations, to say nothing of the landscapes. Then, just as were passing the entrance to the parks, the full moon was rising behind some clouds low on the horizon.

We pulled into Moab around 8:30 -- another 12 hour day -- and checked in to our motel. We needn't have worried, Moab is bigger than I thought (or remembered -- maybe it's grown?), and is chock-full of motels. We'll be searching for a better deal for the next two nights. We went out to eat, some trendy place, we had pizza, and came back to soak in the jacuzzi, chat with some fellow travelers. Now it's almost bed time, and wouldn't you know it, the damn wifi doesn't reach the third floor, even though this is supposed to be a wifi room. Grr!! I'll be going down to the lobby shortly to finally post these entries from the last 5 days or whatever it's been.